


After The Storm

by Josh89



Series: Beauty [6]
Category: Cause of Death (Video Game)
Genre: Confessions, Cute Kids, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Family Fluff, Pregnancy, Sequel, Thunder and Lightning, Thunderstorms, fears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-07 10:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18233858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh89/pseuds/Josh89
Summary: The morning after A Stormy Night. Mal wakes up to find his daughter snuggled up in the same bed as him and his wife.





	After The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline - The morning after A Stormy Night. Victoria is 5 years old.

Mal yawned, rolling over in an attempt to greet his wife, only to come face to face with the raven black hair and sparkling sapphire eyes of a girl who couldn’t have been more than five years old. “Hey kiddo. Good morning”  
He reached out with one hand, brushing a strand of his daughter’s black hair away from her eyes before placing a kiss to her forehead. “Morning, daddy”  
His daughter’s voice was quiet, still husky from sleep. “Where’s your mother?”  
His daughter twisted her head slightly, nodding towards the door that led to the ensuite bathroom. “Mommy not well”.  
The simple reply that fell from the mouth of Mal’s five-year old daughter made the detective smile slightly. “That’s right, Victoria. She’s going to be better soon though. Remember how we told you that you were going to be a big sister in about six months?”  
His query was met by the girl’s excited nodding. He chuckled, waiting until she was somewhat calmer once more before continuing. “Well, that’s why your mom’s been feeling ill lately”  
There was the sound of a flushing toilet from behind the closed bathroom door, then the sound of the tap being turned on and off a couple of seconds later. “What are you two talking about?”  
Mal glanced up at the sound of Natara’s voice, smiling at his wife as she exited the bathroom and walked towards the bed. “I was just telling Victoria why you’ve not been feeling well lately, that’s all”.  
Natara looked confused. “Oh?”  
“Daddy said it was because of my little brother or sister” Victoria added.  
Natara smiled gently. “Yeah, I guess it has been. I’m fine now though. Hey, what do you feel like for breakfast?”  
“Can we have pancakes?”  
Natara and Mal exchanged glances, Mal nodding after a couple of seconds. Thankfully, their daughter was still young enough that pancakes were a completely innocent choice of breakfast food, rather than the edible way of saying ‘thank you so much for last night’ that both Mal and his wife knew them to be. “Sure, kiddo. Smiley-face pancakes?”  
Victoria jumped up and down excitedly. “Yes, please!”  
Mal chuckled. “Alright then. You go ahead downstairs and your mother and I will be down in a couple of minutes, alright?”  
“Okay, daddy”  
As the five-year old girl ran from the room to head downstairs, Natara instinctively shouted out “Don’t run in the house!”  
“Sorry, mommy!”  
As soon as their daughter was out of earshot, Mal smiled gently, swinging his legs over the side of their bed and standing, before crossing to stand beside his wife. Instantly, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to her, sealing their lips together in a brief, though tender, kiss. Mal grinned. “I have wanted to do that ever since I woke up”  
Natara grinned. “Oh? And how long ago was that?”  
“About fifteen minutes now” her husband replied, gently nuzzling his head into the crook of her neck, breathing in the distinctive scent of her watermelon-scented shampoo.  
She sighed quietly, almost wistfully, before pulling away. “C’mon, Mal. You promised to make Victoria smiley-face pancakes for breakfast. You and I both know how impatient she can be when she’s promised smiley-face pancakes”.  
“She gets that from you” Mal chuckled.  
Natara shoved him playfully, shooting him a pretend glare. “Take that back, Mal”  
Mal held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that our daughter got her impatience when it comes to smiley-face pancakes from you”  
Even though she totally did Mal thought. Unaware of the direction of her husband’s thoughts, Natara gave him a satisfied smile before turning and heading down the stairs to join their daughter in the kitchen where she was waiting for them, her husband trailing a couple of steps behind her.  
~About thirty minutes later~  
“So, Victoria, how did you sleep?” Mal queried, taking another sip of his coffee.  
“The storm was scary, but Mommy let me cuddle up in your bed and I felt better”  
Mal nodded. Only a couple of minutes before, as they moved around the kitchen, talking idly while making breakfast together as they usually did on Sunday mornings, Natara had told him how, woken by the previous night’s thunderstorm, Victoria had come to their room and Natara had let her snuggle up in their bed between the two of them. “I used to be scared of storms too, actually” Natara confessed a couple of seconds later.  
Mal looked at her, surprised. That was one of the few pieces of information he didn’t know about his wife, and he was surprised that she had ever been scared of storms. It seemed ridiculous that the brave, loyal, amazing woman who he loved with all his heart could ever be scared of a thunderstorm. She was, and had been ever since they had first met at that crime scene more than seven years before, one of the most courageous people he knew, and it seemed impossible that she’d ever been anything but. “Really?”  
The raven-haired woman sitting next to him at the table shrugged. “We lived in a big house, one actually not all that much bigger than the one that we live in now. And the shapes that the branches outside of my windows made when the lightning flashed through them could be kind of freaky even at the best of times. It didn’t help that the whole house was… well, very echoey. Made the noise that thunder made sound a lot scarier than it really was…”  
Her husband nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that. Growing up in a big, echoey, house, a thunderstorm would probably frighten even the bravest child” he commented.  
Turning his attention back to the raven-haired, blue-eyed, girl that sat across from Natara and himself, Mal smiled softly at his daughter. “Hey, Victoria, how about we do something as a family today to ease your mind about last night’s storm?” he queried.  
His daughter looked up, excitement shining in her sapphire eyes. “What kind of thing?”  
Natara smiled, glancing out of the window at the clear sky that was almost the same shade of blue as the eyes of her husband and daughter before turning her attention back to them and replying. “Well, it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day, how about we finish breakfast and go for a walk in the park?”  
“Picnic?” Victoria queried.  
Natara laughed gently. “If you’d like”  
The smile that lit up her daughter’s face told her everything she needed to know. “Mal, would you mind calling Amy, Jeremy, and the others, and asking if they’d like to meet up with us for lunch?”  
“Of course, it would be my pleasure to”.  
Natara got to her feet, taking the phone from its charger on the kitchen bench and handing it to her husband. It was going to be a fun day.


End file.
